


Gravity Rises: Lilith Crypt [Minisode Two]

by BrightnessWings19



Series: Gravity Rises: Season Three [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gravity Rises, Fantasy, Gen, Lucid Dreaming, Paranormal, Season/Series 03, minisode two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightnessWings19/pseuds/BrightnessWings19
Summary: Young Fiddleford McGucket meets a lone woman with a mystical name, and she turns his life onto a path he never imagined.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Low-key trigger warning, I guess, both for inaccurate history (cuz I don’t know nothin’) and accurate history (cuz I know enough to know that 1960s Tennessee was plenty racist).

**TENNESSEE, USA, 1960**

Ten-year-old Fiddleford McGucket tore down the dirt road. Where he was going, he didn’t know, as long as it was away from his pursuers.

A small mob of adolescent boys chased after him. As they ran, they yelled at Fidds, showering him in insults and threats. “Don’t try to run from us, Biddy Boy!” they shouted, using one of their cruel nicknames for their prey. “We’re gonna getcha, and then we’re gonna teach you the meaning of pain!”

Fidds had no idea why these bullies targeted him. All he knew was that he needed to get away from them. His lungs burned with a needling pain as he ran. _Go away!_ he shouted in his mind; he had no breath with which to voice his thoughts. _Leave me alone!_

The bullies did not hear his mental pleas. So Fidds continued to run.

Where could he go? What could he do? He was faster than the bullies, but not by much. They’d catch up to him eventually. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, tears squeezing from his eyes. He tried to blink them away — he had to be able to see if he was going to get out of this — but there was no stopping them. They just came.

The road sloped up into a hill. Fidds took it without much thought. In the back of his mind, he thought desperately that he may be able to hide once he got over the hill. In practicality, though, the upward climb only served to tire him more.

The bullies behind him didn’t seem to be winded all. Not based on their continued jeers.

How did these boys still have energy?! Why would they expend it chasing after someone as insignificant as Fidds? Didn’t they have better things to be doing?

Finally, Fidds crested the hill. By then, he’d managed to stop crying, and the tears in his eyes no longer obstructed his vision. He could make out what lay on the other side of the hill in near-perfect clarity.

His heart sank.

At the base of the incline lay a secluded shack. Its walls were filled with rotting planks; brightly-colored cloth hung down over the entrances. This was a shack Fidds had only heard about in legend: the lair of the local witch.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, Fidds made a split-second decision. He dashed down the hill.

Straight to the shack below.

“Hey, McSuckit!” one of the bullies yelled. “You gonna go hide out with the witch?”

Someone else laughed. “Maybe he’s a witch too!”

When Fidds didn’t stop, the yells became a bit more concerned. “Biddy, you know who’s down there, don’t you? The witch is gonna eat you!” They kept chasing him, but their resolve seemed to be failing.

Fidds tried to ignore them, tried not to take hope in their faltering. He kept his eyes trained on his feet as he ran, so he wouldn’t trip over rocks, but his eyes kept flicking up to the shack in the distance. His heart raced, and not just because he was exerting himself. Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to gamble his safety on a fabled witch?

His ears trained on the running feet behind him. Yes. He had to. It was either the possibility of a witch eating him, or the surety of these boys beating him up.

_Please, please don’t let there be an actual witch in there._

He made it to the base of the hill. The witch’s shack was only a few yards away. Fidds took as big a breath as his tired lungs would allow—

—And plunged through the drapery.

Immediately, dust filled his lungs. He stopped running, and his body concerned itself with both recovering his breath _and_ attempting to purge the dust that had traveled down his trachea. He stood there, wheezing, wondering if this was the end. Had he come this far only to be defeated by miniscule dust particles?

Thankfully, after a few moments, he found himself able to breathe again. He gave a few more hacking coughs to clear the last of the dust from his windpipe, then huddled on the ground near the walls, waiting in the dark, praying that his plan would work.

The bullies circled up outside. But none of them dared follow Fidds through the cloth barrier. From the sound of their shouting, they didn’t get very close to the shack at all.

“Come outta there! You can’t hide from us!”

“You’re dead, McSuckit!”

“Witch is gonna eat Widdsey, witch is gonna eat Widdsey!”

Fidds covered his ears and waited for them to go away. With each passing moment the tension in his shoulders lessened. The shack seemed to be entirely abandoned, and the bullies weren’t following after him. It seemed that his harebrained plan would actually _work_.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

“Biddy Boy can get eaten by the witch, but not me. I’m outta here.”

“Don’t think this means you’re safe, Widdsey! You’re gonna pay for this tomorrow!”

“Yeah, if you survive the witch’s shack!”

The bullies’ footsteps faded. Fidds was finally alone.

He breathed a musty sigh of relief. It. . . it had worked! It had really worked! There wasn’t a witch in here, but the boys’ own fear had chased them away. Fidds grinned. _Take that, you dumb-heads! There ain’t no witch in—_

“Them boys chasin’ you?”

Fidds screamed and jumped to his feet. His eyes raked the scene, showing an vague figure in the darkness. He — he thought he was alone!

“Ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of, boy.”

 _Run_ , whispered something in Fidds’ brain. _Run, while you still can!_

Instead, he froze, and stuttered words fell from his mouth.

“Y-y-y-y-y-you’re the w-w-witch.”

A low chuckle. “I ain’t no witch.”

“Are you gonna—” Fidds swallowed. “Are you g-gonna eat m-m-me?”

“No, boy, I said I ain’t no witch.” The voice sounded impatient, but not. . . not evil. It was female, of a low timbre, rusty with age yet still vibrant. Fidds squinted. The woman — the not-witch — sat in a chair across the room, her posture relaxed. Fidds’ heart still hammered in his chest from being startled, but he didn’t feel such an urgency to run anymore.

“Besides, you’d be way too stringy,” the not-witch added.

Fidds went silent, struck again with fear, the doubts and worries rushing back. Was. . . was she joking? Or was she really going to eat him?

The woman thumped the side of her chair. “Lighten up, boy! I just made a joke. Polite behavior would be to laugh.”

Fidds forced out a weak laugh. He tried to think of what he should do, besides just standing there like some idiot, but his thoughts moved as quickly as his grandmama’s famous molasses. It was futile.

The woman hummed in satisfaction. “Sounds good. Been a long time since I heard a human laugh. Come closer, boy, open that there window — let me take a look at ya.”

Fidds tensed up again, then swallowed, forcing himself not to stutter. He failed. “P-pardon me, ma’am. My m-m-mama told me not to talk to s-strangers.”

“Then you already broke your mama’s rule, ain’t ya?” the woman replied. “You been talkin’ to me for at least a minute, ain’t ya? Besides, you gotta wait for them boys to get far away from here. Might as well stay here and keep poor old Lilith company.” When Fidds didn’t move, she tilted her head. “Come on now, I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” She tapped her chair again. “Ya got nothin’ to fear. Open them drapes and you’ll see.”

She waved an arm at a nearby window, which had heavy cloth drawn over it, blocking out most of the light from outside. Fidds cautiously made his way over to the window, still wary.

“Just shove those curtains out of the way,” the woman — Lilith, apparently — instructed. “I usually keep ‘em closed — don’t need much sunlight for what I do — but this infernal lighting is no way to entertain guests, hmm?”

Fidds reached up for the curtains and gave them a little tug. They didn’t move.

“Oh, harder than that, boy!” said Lilith. “Give ‘em a nice firm pull.”

Embarrassed, Fidds yanked on the drapes.

And tore them from the window entirely.

He whirled around as they fell to the ground, turning wide eyes on the not-witch. His mouth opened to admit a stuttered apology, but the words caught in his throat when he got a good look at the woman for the first time.

Strangely, she didn’t look angry that Fidds had just destroyed her property. In fact, she was laughing. The dark skin around her eyes crinkled with mirth as she grinned at Fidds. “There ya go! You got more strength than it appears, dontcha?”

She sat in a simple folding chair, but her posture was so lazily confident that she looked like a queen. The only skin visible — the same color as Grandmama’s molasses — was that of her face and her hands. And even those were bedecked with jewelry. Bangles, earrings, rings, of all sizes and colors, glinted in the newly-unearthed sunlight. The hoops and studs in her ears formed hypnotizing spiral shapes, and Fidds had to consciously keep his eyes away from them.

“Get a good look?”

Fidds’ eyes widened as he realized he was staring. “I — um — yes — I mean — I’m sorry—”

“You’re fine, boy,” Lilith said. “I’m quite the sight to behold, ain’t I?” She leaned over and held up an object — long and thin, like a teacher’s paddle. Fidds instinctively flinched, but Lilith didn’t seem to notice. “See this cane? I can’t get up outta this chair without lotsa effort. So you ain’t in no danger.”

“Oh,” Fidds said lamely.

Lilith looked him up and down with a critical eye. Fidds squirmed, torn between being polite and high-tailing it outta there. His mama always drilled into him the importance of eye contact, of deference, of _stand still you little menace._ But his mama would also probably be horrified by this crippled colored woman with her gaudy fashion.

That was probably why Fidds was so fascinated by her.

“What’s your name, boy?” Lilith asked. “And you was runnin’ from them boys, yes?”

Fidds nodded. “Y-yeah. They was tryna b-beat me up.” He swallowed. “My name, uh, my name is F-F-Fidds. I-I mean Fiddleford. Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, ma’am.” He’d been taught to offer his hand for a handshake when he introduced himself, but he was so shaken by this whole experience that he just stood there like his dumb pet goat, Gompers.

“Fiddleford,” Lilith said, trying the name out on her tongue. “Fiddleford. I like it. It sounds like a name destined for great things.”

“R-really?” Fidds didn’t think his name sounded like great things at all. To him, it sounded like someone scolding him when he couldn’t sit still.

“Really,” Lilith said. She was silent for a long moment — a long, awkward moment in which Fidds had to figure numbers in his head to keep from fidgeting. “Listen, boy, d’ya wanna get rid of them bullies?”

Fidds blinked. “Um — uh — Yes’m, b-but. . . well, didn’t I already get rid of them? Th-they’re gone, right?”

“For now,” Lilith said with a slow nod. “Too afraid to face me like men, I s’pose. But I heard their threats. They just gonna getcha tomorrow, hmm?”

Fidds flinched. Yeah. Yeah they were.

Lilith nodded sagely. “So, boy. D’ya wanna get rid of them bullies? Permanently?”

“I just—” Fidds swallowed. “I j-just want ‘em to leave me alone.”

“So would I, young Fiddleford, so would I,” Lilith said. “And I can teach ya. Come back another day and I’ll—”

“But!” interrupted Fidds. He immediately blushed at his outburst, but Lilith motioned for him to go on. “Well, m-ma’am — ain’t they gon git me t’morrow?”

Lilith tapped her temple with a long fingernail. “You’re sharp, aintcha,” she said. “I can’t teach it to you all right now, though. Takes time. ‘Morrow, just skip school. Thain’t teachin’ ya anything useful anyways.”

Fidds couldn’t argue with that. Seemed like they spent more time punishing him than actually teaching him, too. But. . . there was something else. He coughed. “Ma’am,” he said slowly, “you ain’t gonna teach me witchcraft, are you?”

“No, boy, I ain’t gon teach you no witchcraft,” Lilith said impatiently. “Mayhaps ignorant folks would call it that, but it ain’t that.”

“How d’ya know?” Fidds certainly had no idea.

“’Cause I ain’t never seen the devil, that’s how,” she replied. “He don’t bother with a sad black cripple like Lilith Crypt, no sir.”

 _Lilith Crypt_. That was. . . an interesting name. Though with a name like _Fiddleford McGucket_ , he supposed he was in no place to judge.

“So what are you gonna teach me?” Fidds asked cautiously.

“The powers of the mind, boy,” Lilith replied. “The powers of the mind.”

Fidds frowned. Well _that_ didn’t sound helpful at all. How would knowing a couple mind tricks save him from the bullies? Shouldn’t she teach him something defensive? Some kind of fighting routine?

“What is it,” Lilith said flatly. Fidds jumped, realizing that his emotions must’ve been written out all over his face. His face grew red as Lilith watched him cynically.

“Well?” she said when he didn’t answer. “Spit it out, boy, I ain’t got all day.”

 _Actually, you’re stuck in that chair, and it sure_ looks _like you’ve been there all day_ , Fidds thought. But he didn’t dare say that out loud, not even to a colored woman. “Well,” he said, “I dunno, aintcha gonna teach me somethin’. . .” He paused, looking up at her with worried eyes. She waved her hand impatiently, telling him to go on. “. . . well, somethin’ useful?”

She screeched so loudly that Fidds thought a gunshot had gone off or something. His hands flew up to protect his head, and he squeezed his eyes shut. But then the screeching kept going, and no bullets appeared, and. . . was that _laughter_?

“Somethin’ useful!” Lilith crowed. “Somethin’ _useful_! Oh, boy, you ain’t neva heard of the powers of the mind, have ya!”

Fidds wished, not for the first time, that he was a turtle: That way, he could hide in his shell whenever someone yelled at him. “No’m,” he said meekly.

“Well.” She shook her head. “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn then. I promise ya — it be useful stuff. Now you run along, ya hear? Think about how the mind could be powerful — avoid them boys as best ya can — then come back some other day when you’re ready to learn.” She gave him a sly smile. “ _If_ you want to learn.”

 _Did_ Fidds want to learn? He honestly didn’t know.

But that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that the witch — or, the not-witch — or, whatever she was — had given him an out. He could leave.

“O-okay,” he said, taking backwards steps for the door.

Just as he turned, ready to bolt, she called after him. “Oh! Young Fiddleford!”

He flinched and peered over his shoulder. “Y-yes’m?”

Lilith grinned, her velvety skin gleaming in the patchy sunlight that bounced in through the window. “Start payin’ attention to your dreams,” she said. “They’s important, ya hear?”

His head bobbed on his neck like an apple in a bucket of water. “Yes’m,” he said.

He pushed back the curtains to the shack, stepping out into the sunlight.

Then he high-tailed it away from there.


	2. Chapter 2

Fidds ditched school the next day, like Lilith suggested. He’d _never_ heard an adult sanction his skipping school, that was for sure.

As he walked down the dirt roads (being sure to avoid anywhere his ma might find him), he thought about his and Lilith’s conversation the day before. It was practically all he’d been thinking about since. She’d asked him to consider what she’d said — about the mind being powerful — but he hadn’t gotten very far. He couldn’t think of one blessed thing you could do with your _mind_. Now, your body — you could do plenty with your body. You could build things, you could repair things, you could plant crops, you could run and run and run under the summer sun. But your _mind_?

All Fidds’ mind was good for was thinking up things to build. Then he’d build them out of whatever materials he could find — an eraser, some pencils, a chalk tablet — only to get yelled at for not paying attention. Or he’d get called stupid by his teacher because he couldn’t answer a math question on the spot. He knew the answer just fine! He just got so flustered when called on that he forgot it. He was terrible in school.

So the fact that Lilith agreed with him about school’s uselessness excited him in a way he couldn’t describe.

 _Should_ he go back to her shack? It was a question he’d been asking himself all the night before. He didn’t think he wanted anything to do with the so-called “powers of the mind,” but. . . maybe they’d help him in school. Maybe they’d stop the teachers from paddling him. Lilith had certainly seemed to think they’d keep him safe from bullies.

Without thinking about it, Fidds’ feet turned him toward Lilith’s shack. He walked idly along, not even realizing where he was until he crested the little hill that stood above the dwelling. Then he stopped, looking around the little valley of the not-witch. Here again?

“Young Fiddleford!”

Fidds jumped. There was Lilith, standing outside her shack, leaning on her cane. How did she appear out of nowhere like that? He hadn’t seen her before!

Well, he couldn’t very well walk away now that she had noticed him. He carefully picked his way down the hill toward her. He dreaded this. . . but was excited at the same time. His body had carried him here with no consult to his mind, and now it carried him down the hill despite his worries. He was drawn to this Lilith Crypt, sure as the autumn sun that beat down on his shoulders.

“You skipped school,” she said approvingly. “And now you’s back to know more about the powers of the mind?”

A buzz of nervousness tore through Fidds’ stomach. “Well, ma’am,” he said slowly, “I ain’t never been _told_ to skip school before.”

“Feels nice, don’t it?” She leaned even more heavily on her cane. “The sun on your shoulders, the breeze in your hair — school ain’t neva gave ya that.”

Fidds found himself nodding along. She was right. School seemed to steal all that was worth living for and convert it into drudgery.

“Well, anyways,” Lilith said. “Come, boy, come sit with me. Let’s sit on my porch and talk awhile, hmm?”

She hobbled over to a chair that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and settled into it with a relieved moan. Her “porch” was nothing more than a cloth draped over two wooden poles that jutted from the side of her shack. When she sat down, though — it appeared to be the porch of a royal palace.

There was only one chair, so Fidds sat on the ground.

“Did you do as I suggested?” Lilith asked once they were both situated. “Didja pay attention to your dreams?”

Fidds hesitated. “Uh, well,” he hedged, “I don’t remember my dreams none.”

A gleam danced in Lilith’s eye. “But you did last night.”

Fidds started. “How d’ya know?”

“I just know these things.” Lilith shrugged lightly, but the pride in her eyes contradicted the nonchalance of the gesture. “So,” she said, “what’s the dream?”

“Um.” Fidds rocked back and forth, as children are wont to do. “I was in. . . in a ditch.” He squinted his eyes, trying to remember. That’s right, the ditch behind his house, with its weedy slopes and broken bottles. Fidds’ pa used this ditch as his personal trash can.

“It was stormy,” Fidds continued, “and. . . there was broken glass everywhere. . . and the glass — it started moving. . . .”

Lilith was silent as Fidds spoke, but the words behind her eyes seemed to push against her pupils.

“It swirled up in this sudden wind. . . windier than it usually gets. . . and. . .”

He stopped, looking sheepishly up at Lilith.

“Go on,” she encouraged. “No judgment here. Share your dream, young Fiddleford, and set it free.”

Fidds took a deep breath. “Well. . . those bullies were there. . . and they were making the glass shards fly. They. . . they yelled at me. . . . They told me they was using the powers of the mind. . . .” He peered up at Lilith again. “I woke up after that.”

Lilith nodded sagely. “I see,” she mused. “I _see_. . .”

“Do you know what my dream means?” Fidds didn’t think anyone could know what dreams meant. They were pretty random.

“Yes. . . yes, your mind was warning you. Something deep in your consciousness understands the powers of the mind, understands the dangers. It’s trying to warn you.”

Fidds’ eyes widened. “Then — if they’re dangerous, I probably shouldn’t learn them, should I?”

Lilith waved a hand. “No, no, it’s not telling you ya _shouldn’t_ learn them. It’s tellin’ ya to be cautious. Which I woulda told ya too. The powers of the mind are nothin’ to be trifled with.”

This was getting more confusing by the second. “But — but ma’am — what _are_ the powers of the mind?”

Lilith gave him a sly smile. “Do you really wanna know?”

Well now he _had_ to know, or it would drive him crazy forever. He opened his mouth, but Lilith cut him off.

“Because once you know,” she said, “life neva goes back to how it was when you didn’t know.”

Fidds thought about that. He didn’t know if she meant it literally, but he did know that he wouldn’t mind his life changing. It was pretty dull.

Well, unless you count the bullies. They weren’t dull.

But Lilith claimed that the powers of the mind could get rid of them.

“I wanna know,” Fidds said decisively.

Lilith’s smile widened. “I knew you would.”

She shifted in her seat, wincing in pain as she did so. She covered the wince up quickly, though. “To begin,” she said, “tell me whatcha know about dreams.”

Fidds gaped at her. A test? He skipped school, and she gave him a test?

She chuckled at the look on his face. “It’s okay, boy, I ain’t testin’ ya. There’s no right or wrong answer. I just wanna know what you know.”

He looked at her warily before deciding that she was probably safe. She didn’t seem like a person who would make fun of him. Still, everything he knew fled from his brain as he tried to think of it, even though it wasn’t technically a test.

“Nothin’,” he finally admitted. Which wasn’t entirely true, but he’d rather Lilith tell him things he already knew than this futile attempt to pry knowledge from the recesses of his brain.

Lilith gave him a look that seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll start from the ground up, then. First, you dream every night.”

Fidds stared at her. “Wouldn’t I remember them if they happened every night?”

Lilith shook her head. “Your mind blocks you from remembering all of ‘em. T’keep you safe. T’keep the world safe.”

“Safe from what? They’re just dreams.”

“Well, d’ya ever have nightmares?”

Okay, he could see what she meant. “Y-yes’m,” he said. “That dream from last night was a nightmare, weren’t it?”

“Nightmares are scary,” she said, “but they’re just in your head. Can you imagine what would happen if nightmares ever came to the real world?”

Yeah, he could. Every day at school. Every time his teacher called on him. Every time he failed a test.

“I mean actual nightmares, the ones that happen in your sleep. Stuff in real life can be pretty bad, but usually it makes sense. In nightmares, things happen out of nowhere, like them glass shards suddenly flyin’ up off the ground. By not remembering your dreams, your mind is keepin’ ya safe from them becoming _real_.”

“Dreams can’t become real,” Fidds said automatically. _That_ much he knew.

“Can they?” Lilith leaned forward, and a tone of mysticism entered her voice. “That’s what the powers of the mind are,” she said. “The ability to access an ether of power that’s all around us. The ability to make your dreams come into the real world.”

Fidds hit her with another stare. Maybe she was just some crazy witch after all, because that wasn’t possible. You couldn’t just make your dreams real.

Right?

“That’s why your mind protects you,” Lilith continued. “That much power is dangerous. If everyone could make their dreams real, the world would be chaos.”

She raised her cane and gently tapped Fidds’ knee. “But sometimes, the universe —the ether — entrusts special people to know about it. People like us. And them people? We can learn to do it. We can learn to bring dreams into reality.”

“M-me?”

“Yessir, you. I can teach ya to access the ether. It’s somethin’ I been workin’ on for. . . well, years. If you learn to use the powers of the mind. . . well, then, you can make them bullies go away. You can make school disappear.”

Fidds couldn’t believe it. But. . . but he really _wanted_ it to be true. “Can you. . . can you show me? Could you make a dream become real right now?”

Lilith sighed and leaned back in her chair. “It’s not that simple. I’ve dedicated my life to the mind, and I can do little things — like how I could tell that you remembered your dream from last night. I’m still working on it, though. Still working on the big stuff.”

Fidds deflated in disappointment. “Oh.”

Silence permeated the makeshift porch for a moment before Lilith shifted again. This time, she braced herself on her cane and stood. “C’mon, boy. I have somethin’ I wanna show t’ya.”

Fidds got to his feet, and as Lilith hobbled away, he raced to her side. “D’ya want. . .” He cleared his throat. “Ma’am, would you like assistance?” he asked, and he spoke in his best polite-young-man voice, just like his mama taught him.

  “Bah.” Lilith waved her free hand. “The day I can’t walk is the day I’d like assistance. Today I’m on my feet, so I’m fine.” She glanced at Fidds. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

Fidds blushed.

She went around her shack and walked out, away from the hill. Fidds followed her, and he quickly wanted to scream. She was going so _slow_! He offered to help her out of habit, out of kindness, but now he just wished he could help her so she would actually get _moving_.

“Patience, young Fiddleford.” A sideways glance from Lilith told Fidds that he’d been caught. She knew what he was thinking. “A nice slow walk out in nature can reset your soul. Relax — enjoy it.”

Well, if she knew so much about dreams, she probably knew a lot about souls, too. So Fidds didn’t question her. But he didn’t find it easy to follow her advice, either.

“Here, let’s talk,” Lilith said after a few minutes. “That helps pass the time. How old are you, Fiddleford?”

“Y-you can just — uh — call me Fidds,” he said shyly.

“All right-y, Fidds,” she said, shooting him a reassuring smile. “D’ya mind telling me a bit about yourself?”

“N-no’m,” Fidds stuttered. “I’m, uh, I’m ten. Just turned ten in August.”

“Ten, huh? That’s a good age.”

“Yeah, but I don’t like when my birthday is,” Fidds confessed. “I mean, it’s like I get the new school year for my birthday. That’s a terrible present.” He kicked a rock with his toe. “I’d rather my birthday be just after school gets out.”

“Makes right sense,” Lilith said. “Whenever I get sad about my birthday I just be glad I have another one.”

Fidds automatically glanced at her gimp leg.

Lilith caught the glimpse and gave him a half-nod in return. “Hard to get outta danger with this thing, ain’t it?”

Fidds looked away, feeling awkward. “Y-yeah, I ‘magine so,” he mumbled.

“S’alright, young’un. Just makes what I’m ‘bout to show you that much more special.”

They walked in silence a little while longer. Fidds hated silence, but he also didn’t want to talk any longer about Lilith’s deformity. A black woman _and_ a cripple? At this point, Fidds’ mama would probably give him a lashing for talking to her!

But. . . she was nice to him. She seemed to _understand_ him, which was more than Fidds could say for anyone else he knew. Sure, he didn’t understand _her_ , but he wanted to. He’d always been curious about machines and buildings and such — this was the first time he’d ever been so interested in a person.

He liked the feeling.

“Jus’ ‘round this here bend, and we’ll be. . . ah, here it is.”

They turned a corner, and Fidds was hit with a sudden rush of vertigo. The path just _ended_. Where there used to be land stretching off to the horizon, now it dropped off into nothing. Fidds heard a faint rush of water in the distance, one he couldn’t remember hearing before this moment.

“Come look,” Lilith urged. “Come ‘n’ see.”

Fidds was pretty sure he could see plenty from here, thank you. He didn’t want to go anywhere near that edge — he was _not_ fond of heights.

Lilith moved to the edge. “C’mon, Fidds, ya gotta see! It’s beautiful. You can see for miles.”

Fidds whimpered.

She turned, raising an eyebrow. “You ain’t scared of heights, is ya?”

“Um, how ‘bout you just describe it to me?” He didn’t really mean for it to come out as a question, but the pitch of his voice rose involuntarily as he spoke.

Lilith stared at him, then clicked her tongue, shuffling back to him. “No, that won’t do. Ain’t y’ever been flyin’?”

His eyes widened. “In an airplane?”

“No, in yo’ dreams.”

“Oh.” He frowned in thought. “No.”

“Well, that’s what I’m showin’ you.” She took his hand and pulled him after her. At first he struggled, but her grip was so tight that he quickly forgot to be afraid — she would keep ahold of him, and he’d be safe. She tugged him along until he could see over the edge.

She was right. It was beautiful. And also terrifying.

The cliff stretched down some fifty feet, towering over a small river that wove through the trees below. The water was gentle in some places, but in others it crashed against boulders and flung white spray into the air. Everything but the river was obscured in foliage.

“Every week,” Lilith said, and Fidds started, for he had forgotten anything else existed beside the river and the trees, “I dream of this cliff. I dream of running, of jumping off the cliff, of flying through the air.”

She squeezed Fidds’ hand, and he looked up at her. “Someday,” she said, “I’ll do it in reality. I’ll jump off this here cliff and I be _flyin’_ through the air. _That’s_ what the powers of the mind can do.”

The sincerity in her eyes was so strong it nearly pushed Fidds off the cliff right then and there. “B-b-but you can’t do it yet?”

“Not yet.” She sighed but then smiled. “Someday. I’m getting there. I can teach you to fly, too.”

“I-I don’t think I, um, really want to fly,” Fidds said. “But. . . but if it’s possible. . . well, I’ll just be happy knowin’ that.”

“It is possible,” Lilith promised. “I’m gonna get there. And you can do other amazing things with your dreams — don’t hafta be flyin’.”

She let go of Fidds’ hand and laid her fingers on his shoulder, turning him to face her head-on. Fidds felt a momentary thrill of fear when he lost the grip of her hand, but she looked into his eyes, and he became mesmerized by her gaze. They stood there, alone on the bluff, as the river crashed faintly into the rocks below.

“Do you want to learn, Fiddleford?” asked Lilith. “Do you want to harness your dreams?”

He felt a pit in his stomach. Even at his age, he could tell that whatever he chose now would alter the course of his life forever.

Logically, he knew what he should say. He knew he should leave and never talk to Lilith again. He knew he should go home and go to school and be a good boy.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. He spoke before his sense of obedience could stop him.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”


	3. Chapter 3

That night, Fidds lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling and seeing only the river beneath the cliff.

To his chest he held a book. It wasn’t much to look at — just a simple poly-bound notebook with a plain blue cover. But this book was far from simple. According to Lilith, this book would unlock Fidds’ mental powers.

“Every morning,” she’d instructed, “write in this book whatever you remember about your dreams. The more you write them down, the easier they’ll be to remember, and the more you can wake up your mind without waking your body. Now, you just write down what happens in your dreams, what you feel, things like that. Then come back next week and tell me how it goes.”

She’d referred to it as a _dream journal_. He liked that. It made him feel bigger, better, more important.

Now, as he lay in the dying sunlight, he clutched the dream journal to him like a lifeline.

Everything he’d learned today was amazing. Almost too amazing to believe. But if Lilith could teach herself to _fly_ — the possibilities were endless. For the rest of the day, after he’d left her shack, he’d found himself daydreaming about, well, dreams. He imagined what he could do, imagined what he could see, imagined what it would be like to come alive in his sleep and live in a world all his own. He daydreamed his way through dinner (which he was late for), through getting spanked for his tardiness, through parental lectures, through more spanking, and through getting sent to bed early.

Well, bed was the best place to dream, anyway.

It was still light outside when he got sent to his room, so he simply held his new dream journal and continued to daydream. Or, evening-dream? He imagined using the powers of the mind to grow huge and squash those mean bullies like bugs. He imagined swimming in the depths of the ocean and discovering the magical life there. He imagined building the world’s sleekest machine that could do a million things at once.

Sunset bled into starlight. Fidds gradually slipped into sleep — and with it, dreams.

But he was so busy dreaming while awake that he hardly noticed the transition.

~~~~~

The first week passed without much incident. Fidds still got beat up — “ _We was worried you got eaten by the witch. Thanks for comin’ back so we could pound ya!”_ — still got humiliated in front of the entire class — “ _Fiddleford, if you don’t sit up and pay attention, I’ll send you to the principal’s office.”_ — and still had household chores. But everything seemed better now. Even though nothing around him had changed, _Fidds_ had changed.

He started waking up earlier so he could write in his dream journal. At first, he had almost nothing to write, but by the time a week had passed, he was remembering full narratives from his dreams. Some of those dreams were nightmares, and he shuddered to write them down — but Lilith had said told him to write whatever he could remember. Maybe if he wrote the nightmares down, they’d go away.

When it had been exactly a week, he went back to Lilith’s shack. He checked his tail often as he went, afraid of getting ambushed, but he made it to her without incident. Lilith acted happy to see him — happier than anyone else did. She praised him for his efforts in dream journaling; she thanked him for the visit; she told him he was special. A strange feeling flooded through Fidds’ limbs as he basked in the warmth of her smile.

That day, Lilith taught him about reality checks. “Every hour or so, you stop and make sure you’re not dreaming. Once you get in the habit, it’ll transfer to your dreams, and you’ll become aware. You’ll become _lucid_.”

 _Lucid_. Fidds turned the word over in his head as he left for home. The next week, he tried the reality checks that Lilith had taught him. The checks themselves weren’t hard — counting fingers, pulling on loose bits of skin, holding his breath — but remembering to do them was difficult. He would get so caught up in the minutia of life that he’d completely forget. Then he’d remember that night, when it was too late, and get irritated with himself.

“That’s natural,” Lilith told him, when he later expressed his frustration to her. “Our minds are built against unlocking the dream world. You and me can do it by harnessing the ether, but it ain’t easy. You just keep tryin’, ya hear? Focus hard on the goal of accessing your powers.”

Fidds scuffed his shoes on her dirt floor and mumbled something.

“Speak up, boy — I ain’t deaf, but I can’t hear nobody who’s mute, neither.”

Pink colored his cheeks. He didn’t really want to repeat himself.

“C’mon, now. Speak your mind.”

“Well, um, I said. . . the goal of accessing my, um, powers, seems. . . well, really far away.” He gestured tentatively in her direction. “If you ain’t unlocked ‘em yet, I mean.”

“Who’s to say I ain’t?”

Fidds cocked his head in confusion. Well. . . _she_ said that. Didn’t she?

Lilith shook her head at him. “You’s lookin’ at this like we’s just gonna wake up one day with all the powers of the mind. It’s more gradual than that. I already have some powers of the mind — you seen that already. I’m still workin’ for more, sho, but I gots some. Righ’ now, you’re working for the first power: lucid dreaming. With the work you’ve been doing, that’s not so far away.”

He left that day feeling encouraged, as seemed to be the trend when he visited Lilith. He renewed his effort with reality checks, he wrote down every little thing he could remember from his dreams, and he met with his newfound mentor and friend about once a week.

All this he did in diligence until finally, a couple months after he met Lilith, he had his first lucid dream.

He stood in the middle of a cornfield, gazing up at the golden ears that budded from the tops of lush green stalks. They looked so delicious, he just wanted to take one and bite into it — but this was Ol’ Man Jedidiah’s farm, and he would beat you within an inch of your life if he caught you stealing.

In fact. . . he’d get angry if he so much as found you on his property. Fidds had to get out of here, quick.

He started running through the cornfield, brushing against the long leaves of the corn stalks without feeling them. He ran and ran until the cornfield spit him out onto an open plain. Fidds stumbled to a stop — the plain ended just a few feet away in a sudden cliff.

Curiosity seized him, and he edged his way to the drop-off. Sure enough — this was Lilith’s cliff. The water below threw up droplets that sprayed into Fidds’ vision. He gazed down at the trees and water below and idly wondered when Lilith would be able to fly.

Thinking of Lilith reminded him about his goal to lucid dream. When was the last time he’d done a reality check? He’d better do one now. He pinched at the skin on the back of his hand and pulled.

It stretched like taffy before his eyes.

For a second, Fidds just stared at it. Wait — wait, did that mean — was he —

“I’m dreaming,” he realized aloud.

He loved the sound of that sentence so much that he said it again. “I’m dreaming. I’m — I’m dreaming! This is a dream!”

He ran alongside the cliff and shouted it to the dreamworld as loud as he possibly could. “ _I’m dreaming!_ ”

In his excitement, he woke himself up.

The sky outside his window was the pre-dawn purple of a new day. Fidds sat up and blinked blearily, while his brain scrambled to orient itself in time and space. What day was it? Saturday, right? Or was it still Friday evening? Was it dark outside because it was morning, or because it was night?

Then his eyes widened as he remembered.

The dream.

He’d. . . he’d done it.

He flopped back onto his pillow and let the memories flow over him. Excitement like he’d never felt before filled his lungs. Excitement mixed with wonder mixed with an _otherworldly_ sense of greatness.

A hysterical little laugh escaped him. Otherworldly. He’d visited another world.

Eventually, he rolled over and grabbed his dream journal. He was far too excited to go back to sleep now, and he wanted to capture the beauty of the dream before it slipped from his mind. There wasn’t much to remember, since the dream had been so short, and Fidds felt he could recall most of it. The problem wasn’t remembering, it was. . . it was finding the _words_ to describe the experience. How on earth could he describe the feeling of becoming lucid? He wanted to bottle it up so he could feel it later, whenever he needed a pick-me-up. He wanted to share it with the entire world. _Words_ weren’t enough to do that.

Still, they were all he had. He finished writing in his dream journal and went about his day. The giddy feeling from his dream lingered, but gradually slipped away as he did his Saturday chores. Later the excitement trickled back, when he told his parents he was going out to play before visiting Lilith.

She acted absolutely thrilled when he told her, and they celebrated together. That strange feeling came back as Fidds talked with her about his first taste of lucidity. Her happiness for him was almost better than the dream itself, to tell the truth.

“Well?” she eventually asked. “Is it worth it? This is your first mental power — is it worth the work to keep going?”

“Yes,” Fidds said immediately.

Lilith’s face broadened into a wide smile. She didn’t speak for a moment, just let that smile light the room. Then, “I’m glad I met you, Fidds,” she said.

Fidds ducked his head shyly. “M-me too, ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t ma’am me.” Lilith waved a dismissive hands. “We’re friends now, ain’t we? Two special people headed for glory. Together.”

Fidds didn’t know how to react to that — he’d never really had _friends_ before — so he just gave her a foolish grin.

She reached out and took his hand, patting it in a grandmotherly fashion. “I have this feeling about you, Fiddleford,” she said. “It be lingering since I first met you, yessir. Call it a premonition, but I just know you’s special.”

“Is that a power?” he asked, his eyes wide. “Premonition?”

Her head tilted in a slight nod. “You have a great destiny, Fidds. One I’m just lucky to be a part of.” She pulled him closer with an intense look in her eyes. “You’re meant for great things, my boy. The ether swirls around you in a complicated pattern, too intricate to decipher. Whatever your fate, it’s a big one. It’ll coincide with the motions of the ether.”

Fidds just stared at her. “Motions of the ether,” he mouthed. The phrase felt too precious to voice aloud, but his mouth formed the words. Though he had little idea what they meant, an excited shiver rushed through him.

“Yes,” Lilith said with a knowing smile.

“A-are you sure?” he asked. “I’m — I’m not special, I’m just a nobody.”

Lilith stared at him in disbelief. “A nobody? A nobody? You jus’ had a _lucid dream_ , and you’s telling me you’re a nobody?”

“I-it wasn’t very long or nothin’,” Fidds mumbled.

“That don’t matter,” Lilith said firmly. “It happened, and you just said you’re gonna make it happen again. You’re on your way to harnessing the powers of the mind. When you move, the very ether moves with you.” She shook her head and smiled. “If that’s not special, I dunno what is.”

“Woah.” It was all Fidds could think to say.

“Woah, indeed,” Lilith agreed. She patted his hand again. “Thanks for letting me teach you.”

“Th-thanks for teachin’ me,” he stammered.

“It’d be a shame to not to,” Lilith said, and she leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. Her fingers gently rubbed the back of Fidds’ hand. “It’d be a shame.”


	4. Chapter 4

Fidds continued his training with Lilith. After his first lucid dream, it was some months before he had another one, but he kept up his efforts. He wrote in his journal, performed reality checks, and learned to meditate. Suddenly, he was twelve, able to lucid dream about once a month, and focusing on specific dream goals. Then he was fourteen, entering high school, and working impossible feats in his dreams on a regular basis.

High school turned out to be _much_ better than the previous schools Fidds had attended. He got to take classes more focused on his interests — metal and wood workshops, advanced math classes — and he was confident enough to answer questions without losing his train of thought. His teachers helped him cultivate his natural brilliance, and he enjoyed learning from them. He was still shy, nervous, and bullied — but now school had inherent rewards. He actually liked attending.

Of course, what he learned in school was nothing compared to what he learned from Lilith. His life got busier, and he couldn’t visit her as often — but he still worked on the powers of the mind, and he still gave his parents the slip when he could and headed over to her shack. He was getting more attention and praise now, and some kids actually wanted to talk to him, but he didn’t feel the same happiness that he felt around Lilith. Throughout high school, she continued to be his only major friend.

Then it came time for college.

During high school, Fidds’ teachers introduced him to many amazing opportunities. West Coast Tech, with its insanely high standards and astoundingly big results; University of Tennessee, with its proximity to home; and a variety of other technical colleges, engineering programs, and prestigious studies.

Fidds thought it would be fascinating to study the mind and get a scientific look at the ether, the powers of the mind, and lucid dreaming. With the amazing events of his childhood — meeting Lilith, learning to lucid dream — he had no doubt that there was something more to the mind than they taught in schools.

With his nervousness and flustered nature, though, he didn’t trust himself to discover ground-breaking things about the mind. He did much better with his practical machines. So, much to his teachers’ chagrin, he rejected all his prospects in favor of a small school called Backupsmore, where he’d have a quiet education with less prestige but more freedom. He worked best when he worked independently, after all.

He didn’t make this decision easily. Many long afternoons were spent fretting with Lilith — or, more accurately, Fidds fretting while Lilith tried to calm him down.

“Go where your heart’s telling you, Fidds,” she’d say.

“But my heart’s telling me to go _everywhere_!” he’d cry. “I could go somewhere with an amazing engineering program — but I’d have to leave you. So I could stay nearby and visit you, but the places ‘round here don’t have what I want to study!”

“Do you want to go to college at all?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. _That_ much he knew. “Not for long, but I wanta learn more before I set out in the world.”

They did their research — or, more accurately, Fidds did the research while Lilith consulted him — and eventually, he found Backupsmore. He was probably the only student there who purposefully chose to attend, but the low-pressure environment spoke to him more than any other option had.

His parting with Lilith, on the day he left for school, was probably the hardest thing he’d ever gone through. Even the death of his father, some years earlier, hadn’t been so difficult.

“You keep goin’, ya hear?” she said. A shiny film covered her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge it. “Keep on harnessing the ether. Keep working for your powers.”

“I will,” Fidds replied. He sat next to her, on a chair he’d supplied to the shack. “Of course I will. We’ll do it together.”

Lilith put a hand on his knee. “I’m so close, Fidds,” she said, and her voice was almost a whisper. “So close.”

“Let me see you fly the next time I visit.” He smiled gently at her. At eighteen, he’d long since surpassed her in height; it was strange to look down on her, when he’d spent half his life gazing up into her sunlight.

He stood. “I’d better go,” he said. “My bus leaves soon.” He held out a hand to help her up, but (as always) she grumbled him away and hoisted herself to her feet with her cane.

The hug that followed was awkward and lopsided and Fidds wouldn’t have it any other way.

A minute later, Fidds walked up the hill away from Lilith’s shack. She stood in the doorway, waving at him, and he forced himself not to think of this as goodbye. He _would_ see her again. He was leaving, but he’d be back.

The bus ride to campus was long and lonely, and Fidds tried to fill it with good memories he’d shared with Lilith over the years. They were filmed with a layer of nostalgia, but they were good nonetheless. They were full of triumphs, as both Fidds and Lilith had progressed in their powers of the mind. Fidds could read people better — Lilith could bring small details from her dreams into reality — and both could lucid dream regularly. For the past year, they’d been trying to figure out how to share a lucid dream, but hadn’t been successful.

Now, Fidds was off to be successful in another area of life.

He was worried — who wasn’t when starting college? It quickly became apparent, though, that the ether had moved to influence Fidds’ college experience. Upon meeting his new roommate, Fidds immediately knew his destiny was beginning to form.

Stanford Pines was a scientifically-minded teenager whose natural brilliance was suppressed by bitterness. In the first few weeks of term, Fidds heard Ford’s sob story constantly: a failed perpetual motion machine, with hundreds of hours put into it, that Ford had never quite gotten to work. Countless nights awake with his loyal twin brother, the pair of them fueled by corny jokes and toffee peanuts, and all for nothing!

Fidds wanted to point out that perpetual motion was only possible through the powers of the mind, but Ford looked so sad and angry around the topic that he didn’t dare.

As the school year went on, Ford mellowed out, and the two became friends. To Fidds, it felt like a shaky friendship — Ford was so charismatic that Fidds constantly feared he’d be abandoned for their cooler classmates. In other words, it definitely wasn’t as strong a friendship as Fidds had with Lilith. But both Fidds and Ford were interested in unnatural happenings — a deliberate motion from the ether, Fidds was sure — and that common fascination drew them together.

Fidds never felt safe enough to share what he knew about the powers of the mind, however. That knowledge felt highly personal, and he didn’t feel that Stanford — dynamic as he was — would understand.

So despite his connections, Fidds still felt highly lonely. He missed his high school teachers. He missed his ma. He even missed his pa, whose absence he rarely felt. But he especially missed Lilith.

The winds of time slowly blew in the February of 1969, and Fidds found himself deep in his studies. With one semester of college under his belt, he felt a little more stable about life. He hadn’t made it home for Christmas, unfortunately, and he passed a lonely holiday in the dorms while Ford went back to New Jersey to be with family — but that was two months past, and he tried not to think about it. Instead, he focused on the upcoming summer, when he could finally see Lilith again.

Said upcoming summer felt very far away.

Then one day, in his Intro to Mechanical Engineering class, the ether moved again. Fidds sat in the back of the classroom, idly doodling a crude likeness of Lilith as she sat in her folding chair and looked queenly. Except this sketch of Lilith hardly looked like a queen at all — hardly even looked like Lilith. Fidds’ artistic skills lay solely in the realm of blueprints, but he still drew all sorts of things, from his project ideas to his dreams. It kept him from fidgeting.

“Now, at the end of the semester, you have a major project due.” The professor stood at the front of the classroom and looked out imperiously over his students. “I mentioned this in the first week of class, but today I’ll go over it in more depth.”

Fidds squinted down at his sketch. Lilith had more jewelry than that, he determined — though with her squalid living conditions, he’d never figured out where she got it.

“The project conditions are fairly open — I simply want you to build a new machine. It can be a new take on an old machine, so long as you are creating the design yourself. Some project ideas in the past. . .”

Those eyes looked horrible. He really was terrible at drawing eyes. Maybe adding a lock of hair over one of — oh, no, that was worse. Fidds frowned down at the paper.

“. . . plenty of computing machines, though I would counsel against those as they are very difficult, and a bit outside of the scope of the project. If you want. . .”

Her cane looked more like a wand than a support. Fidds kind of liked that, since it made her appear powerful, but it also made her posture look extremely awkward. If Lilith were to stand without a cane, she certainly wouldn’t be standing like _that_.

“. . . an easily demonstrable project, such as an automatic kitchen device, or a clock, or a mechanical support system for human movement.”

Fidds looked up.

“We’ll spend a class period presenting our projects, so you won’t have—”

“Excuse me, s-sir?” Fidds waved his hand tentatively.

The professor looked unimpressed. “Yes, McGucket?”

“What was that you said? Ab-b-bout, um, machines for movement?”

His teacher’s expression turned from unimpressed to mildly exasperated. “In the past, I’ve had students present me with exoskeletons to help people run or jump or things like that. Some were specifically for those lacking the ability, and others were to improve anyone’s normal ability. It’s a viable option for your project. Now, Mr. McGucket, if you would please pay better attention — this project is thirty percent of your grade. You won’t want to miss the details.”

“Of c-course, sir,” Fidds said, ducking his head. 

The professor went on, but even after that warning, Fidds found it hard to focus. Instead, he found himself staring down at his sketch of Lilith as an idea grew in his mind. Mechanical support system. . . could he help Lilith walk without a cane?

She was trying to learn to fly, he knew. But. . . well, as the school year had drawn on, Fidds had become unsure of the powers of the mind. He didn’t have anyone to talk to about them, and he was surrounded by scientific theories and tangible engineering tools. His college studies felt far more substantial than the ether. Fidds still wrote in his dream journal — he still clung to what little shreds of faith he had left. But it was hard without Lilith to affirm his efforts.

He was honestly worried about returning to her with these doubts. So maybe he could return with something else — he could come home in triumph with a gift for his friend. It would prove he hadn’t forgotten her, even during these long months of separation.

“. . . due the last day of the semester, which is the day you’ll present your projects to the class. Any questions?”

Fidds jumped guiltily as he snapped back into the present. He found he did have questions — quite a few — but he didn’t dare ask them after being specifically told to pay attention. His eyes desperately searched out Ford, who sat across the room, and silently begged him to share notes later. Ford shot him a nod and a small grin of understanding.

For the next few minutes, students asked questions and the professor answered them, until the end of class. “And there you have it,” the professor said. “Good luck with your projects. Class dismissed.”

The students emptied the classroom in ten seconds flat, hurrying to their next obligation. A minute later, the professor joined them. But Fidds stayed, ideas rushing through his mind, a small smile lingering on his face. He had another class to get to, but his ideas kept him rooted to his desk as they clambered for his attention.

Ford poked his head back into the classroom. “Fidds? You coming?”

The words jolted him out of his reverie, and he hurried to get his things together. “Y-yeah, just — just a second.”

He stood and followed Ford out of the classroom and to their next class (the roommates shared half their classes). Ford started talking about the project, about some ideas he had. Fidds nodded along, but his mind was far away from microwave ovens or automatic chemistry sets. Instead, he thought about the exoskeleton, about how to build it, about how much Lilith would love it.

It’d be the perfect gift.


	5. Chapter 5

**SUMMER 1969**

When Fidds stepped down from the bus, but he felt like he was floating.

The bus driver retrieved Fidds’ luggage from the storage compartment, and Fidds didn’t even harp on him to be careful with the case that held the exoskeleton. He was too busy breathing in the familiar Tennessee air and holding back tears as he realized that, after a whole year, he was _home_.

A minute later, he realized the bus driver had set his suitcases nearby and was now climbing back into the bus. “Thank you,” Fidds called as his ride pulled away.

The town appeared to have remained the same for the entire year Fidds had been gone. He walked slowly down the streets (partly to relish the sights, but mostly because his suitcases were cumbersome), and he wondered where he should go first: home, to put down his things and kiss his mother, or Lilith’s shack, to give her the exoskeleton?

A car horn pulled him out of his thoughts. He jumped at the sudden noise, looking around wildly. A voice called, “Fiddleford! You’re home!”

Fidds turned to the voice. “Ma!” he said, surprised. “You — you have a car?”

Mrs. McGucket pulled over, got out of her sleek little car, and hurried over on short-heeled Oxfords. She pulled Fidds into a hug. “Oh, Fidds, it’s wonderful. I got a job with a makeup company, and now I have a car and new clothes and everything!”

Since the time of her husband’s death, she’d worked a thankless secretarial job. Now things seemed a lot better. “That’s great!” said Fidds.

Together, the McGuckets lifted Fidds’ luggage into the trunk of the car, and Fidds swung into shotgun. Just like that, his decision on where to go was made for him — he went home with his mother, told her somewhat about his first year at college, heard a lot about her new life selling makeup and jewelry, and ate a good home-cooked meal for the first time since he’d left. It wasn’t until the next morning that he had time to visit Lilith.

With the newly-risen sun peeking through his window, Fidds gingerly lifted his exoskeleton from its case. Thankfully, it was still intact, though he had to make some adjustments as he fitted it onto himself. For the sake of his class project (which he’d scored highly on), he’d build the exoskeleton to support him. When he gave it to Lilith, he’d adjust it to fit her.

With the exoskeleton on his legs, Fidds grabbed its case and went to the kitchen to get some food. He ate a muffin and packed two lunches — one for him and one for Lilith, who admired Mrs. McGucket’s cooking (though the cook had no knowledge of this). “I’m leaving, Ma! I’ll be back for dinner!”

His ma hollered back in the affirmative, and Fidds left.

The summer weather was beautiful. Fidds whistled as he walked, and the clanking of the exoskeleton provided percussion to his tune. This was it! He was finally going to see Lilith again!

He was halfway up the hill that led to her shack when he saw her.

It seemed she hadn’t learn to fly yet. She crested the hill, hobbling on her cane, and didn’t see him at first. Then he called her name, and she stopped, squinting down at him. “Fiddleford?”

“Lilith!” He ran up the hill, slower than usual so as to not mess up the exoskeleton. (He’d built it more for walking than for running.) “Lilith, I’m home!”

She met him halfway, moving as fast as she could with her cane. Her free arm flew out to hug him, but she stumbled on the slope of the hill. Fidds caught her with a small, joyful laugh. “Let’s get somewhere more stable,” he suggested.

“I was just on my way into town,” she said, leaning against him. “But I can do that later. Let’s go back to the shack.”

Fidds offered to help her, but as soon as she had her balance again, she pushed him off. She never did like getting help. Well, with this exoskeleton, she wouldn’t need help! Fidds was bursting to tell her, but he waited until they made it to her shack.

Once there, Lilith gave Fidds a big hug — oh, how he’d missed her hugs! — and sat on her folding chair, which was out on the makeshift porch.  “So,” she said once she was settled, “what’s that on your legs?”

A huge grin split Fidds’ face. “This is my project,” he said. “I did it for class last semester. It’s an exoskeleton.”

Instead of looking excited or even intrigued, as he’d imagined, Lilith looked wary. “Is it now,” she said. Maybe she didn’t understand what he meant?

“Yes’m,” he said excitedly. He put out a leg to show her. “I built it for you. A-as a present. If you put it on, it’ll help you walk without a cane, faster than ever!”

He looked up to her with delighted eyes, only to be met with guarded ones. “Oh,” she said simply.

Fidds’ grin slipped into a frown. “Lilith? What’s wrong?”

Lilith closed her eyes and reached out a hand. Confused, Fidds took the hand, and Lilith rubbed at it. “Oh, Fiddleford,” she said, eyes still closed. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

He was caught off guard by her reaction, but now he smiled again. “Of course. Here—” He pulled his hand away, sat down on the dirt, and started undoing the straps of the exoskeleton.

“I don’t want it.”

Fidds stopped. “What?”

“Don’t need it. Imma learn to fly.”

“I-I know,” Fidds said, “but this’ll help you walk. Y-you’ll need it to go out in public. People don’t like things that are different. You’ll need this, even if you—” He stopped himself, his eyes widening.

Lilith caught the words. “Even if?” she asked, her eyes snapping open. “Even _if_ I learn to fly?”

“N-no, Lilith, I know you can, but—”

“I’m going to fly,” Lilith said, and her tone brooked no argument. “I’m so close. And when I learn to fly, I’ll never have to be around people who judge me for the color of my skin or the way that I walk, and it won’t matter no more if I use a cane.”

“Then it won’t matter if you use an exoskeleton, either!” Fidds protested. He finished taking it off and got to his feet, holding it out to Lilith. “I-I made it for you, it’ll make it easier, it’ll make it less painful—”

“Fiddleford.” Lilith looked at him with a touch of worry in her eyes. “Fidds, do you still believe in the powers of the mind?”

The question hit him hard. It was exactly what he was hoping wouldn’t come up.

 “Do you not think I can fly?” Lilith asked when he didn’t answer. “Have you abandoned your powers?”

“N-no!” Fidds said. A knot twisted in his stomach. “No, I still write in my dream journal, I still have lucid dreams, I’ve seen the ether move to affect me—”

“So you still believe in your powers,” Lilith said. “Do you believe in mine?”

Fidds hesitated.

The longer he remained silent, the darker Lilith’s expression grew. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “It’s not that I don’t believe in you!” he said. “I’ve seen the powers of the mind, I know some parts of them are real — but I haven’t seen dreams come into reality. I haven’t seen what you promised me. I couldn’t get rid of the bullies, I couldn’t stop my elementary school teachers from being mean to me, I couldn’t make Ma happy after Pa died. I couldn’t change the world around me.”

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “You think after just a decade of learnin’, you could do all that?”

“That’s what you told me! You made it sound like I could stop the bullies right away! But now I’m in college, and I _still_ get bullied sometimes, and my ‘powers of the mind’ don’t help!” Suddenly, all the doubts he’d run into since going to college were piling up in his throat and pushing out of his mouth. He’d never said any of this aloud before, just quietly doubted whether some of Lilith’s promises were real. The things he’d seen results for — like lucid dreaming — were great, but he’d never seen results for controlling bullies or _flying_ or anything like that.

“It’s gotten better,” Lilith said.

“Because I grew up, not because I unlocked reality-defying powers!” Fidds held out the exoskeleton. “Please listen,” he pleaded. “If anyone can fly, Lilith, it’s you. But I — I don’t know if that’s real. This—” He shook the exoskeleton lightly. “—this is real. You can use it even if you can’t fly.”

“I’m going to fly,” Lilith insisted. She pushed the exoskeleton away. “And I can make it less painful to walk, too, _without_ your fancy contraption. I don’t need help.”

“Yes, you do!” Fidds shouted.

The area fell silent. Even the birds stopped chirping.

A terrible pain twisted on Lilith’s face. “Is that how you think of me?” she asked quietly. “I’m not a friend — I’m just a sad black cripple who needs help. Is that it?”

“N-no, Lilith, you’re my friend, you’re my best friend—”

“Then why can’t you believe me?” she demanded. “Why’d you have to make me something — a _gift_ — that would make me more like you and less like me? Why’d you have to go off to college and come back thinking you know all the answers? I don’t want your solutions, Fiddleford! I want—” Her voice cracked. “I wanted your friendship.”

Her words echoed off the walls of her decrepit shack, falling on Fidds’ ears like blows to the head. He stared at her in anguish, his mind reeling over everything that had gone wrong.

“You — you _have_ my friendship,” he finally managed.

Lilith looked at him sadly. “That was my hope,” she said.

“It’s real!” Fidds grabbed her hand. “It’s here! Please, Lilith, I’ve been so lonely. And now I’m back, I’m here, we can be friends, I’m sorry I doubted your powers, I really do believe in you—”

“Then take that thing away.” She pointed at the exoskeleton with her free hand. “I don’t want trinkets. Just be with me, okay? Learn with me. That’s friendship.”

Fidds glanced at the exoskeleton, then at her face. “I. . . I just wanted to give you a gift,” he said quietly.

“I know,” Lilith said. “I really am grateful, Fidds — I’m sure it’s amazing. But. . .” She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. “If I use anything to help me, I’m afraid I’ll give up.”

Fidds frowned. “Give up on flying? That’s not like you, Lilith.”

She didn’t answer, and she looked more vulnerable that Fidds had seen her in. . . ever. Her hand went limp in his. Finally, she spoke reluctantly. “The pain. . . the pain of walking is my motivation, Fidds. If you take the pain away, what’ll I have left?”

“A better life?” he tried.

Lilith conceded his point with a dip of her head. “But not the best life,” she said. “Not the life where I fly.”

Fidds bit his lip.

“It’s possible,” Lilith insisted. “I will do it. You’ve been away with no one to talk with about the ether. I understand why you doubt. But I’ll help you see again.”

Hesitantly, Fidds smiled. “Maybe we can finally have that shared dream.”

Lilith squeezed his hand, returning his smile. “I think we already do,” she said.

The knot in his stomach loosened. “We will if you help me find it again,” he replied. “I. . . I’m sorry. I thought I could help you, but. . . I wasn’t thinking of you as a friend.”

“No, no,” Lilith said. “You were. I’m sorry I said those things. Thank you for the gift. I. . . I hope you understand why I can’t accept it.”

He thought he did, though part of him thought she was just being stubborn. The rest of him, however, admired her for having the strength to go through all this pain for the sake of her powers.

 “I understand,” he said. “I’m just happy to be back with you.”

She squeezed his hand again. “Me too,” she said. “Me too.”


	6. Chapter 6

After making up from their argument, Fidds’ friendship with Lilith was almost back to normal. He had to get a summer job at an auto repair shop to pay for school, but he visited her shack whenever he could. They meditated together; she taught him more about the powers of the mind; he told her about the things he’d learned at college. Then it was over. The summer of 1969 seemed to go by in a flash, and suddenly Fidds was back at Backupsmore.

He learned more and more about engineering, and he also learned more about his mind. He worked ever more diligently on lucid dreaming, on using those dreams to manipulate reality. Months passed, then years. Job offers came up, but Fidds continually chose to go home for the summer, work at the auto shop, and visit Lilith.

As the years in college went by, Fidds stuck by Ford, doing projects with him and generally enjoying his company. Ford became increasingly interested in supernatural happenings, and devoted himself to searching out and analyzing claims of the paranormal. This interest aligned nicely with Fidds’ knowledge of the ether, and he thought maybe he should tell Ford about the powers of the mind. But every time he thought about it, he felt so queasy he couldn’t speak. When that happened, he figured it was the ether, signaling to him that it wasn’t time yet. So he kept his peace.

Then suddenly it was spring of 1975, and Fidds was graduating college with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.

He wrote home, and his ma came to see him graduate. Ford came too, although he was going to attend college for another year before graduating with a Ph.D. Lilith didn’t come. For one, she refused to use the mail service, so Fidds couldn’t send her a letter; for two, he doubted she’d want to come somewhere so crowded.

After graduating, Fidds went home with his shiny college degree. . . and kept working at the auto shop. He tinkered with parts in his mom’s garage in his spare time, though, having been infected with a new dream to make personal computers for people. In his correspondence to Ford, he constantly wrote about how great it would be, about how much these computers would help people. “ _Just think about it!”_ he wrote in the late fall. “ _People could keep all their records for taxes in one machine, or perform in a matter of minutes these complicated functions that would take hours by hand!”_

Lilith didn’t like the idea of computers, so Fidds quickly stopped talking to her about them. He’d still go visit her — as often as he could, often daily. Then, slowly, daily became every few days, then weekly. Between the auto shop and his personal computer projects, he had virtually no time for much else. It was all he could do to keep writing in his dream journal every day.

Spring of 1976 arrived, and with it, Ford’s graduation. Fidds traveled back to his alma mater to support his friend. He even attended an after-party, which he rarely did. At the party, he met Ford’s obnoxious twin brother, Stanley. He then did his best to avoid the man at every turn.

“Fiddleford,” Ford called, just as Fidds was trying to sneak away from Stanley. “There you are! Come over here, I have to tell you about something!”

That night, Ford told Fidds about his new project. With his words tripping over themselves, he described his large award of grant money, and the small town in Oregon called Gravity Rises that had rumors of supernatural happenings. “We can go and study something no one has ever studied before!”

Fidds blinked. “We?”

Ford nodded, a huge grin on his face. “Yes. Do you want to join me? Do you want to be research partners?”

Fidds didn’t know how to respond. “That — that sounds great!”

“So you’ll come?”

He hesitated. “I-I’m not sure. I wanna, but. . .”

Ford clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Think about it. I’m headed out there in a couple months. I’ll write you and let you know when, and you tell me if you’re coming.”

“O-okay.”

On the bus ride back to Tennessee, Fidds mulled over this opportunity. He wanted to go — it sounded amazing — but he was afraid. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of leaving Lilith. Afraid of getting attacked by a supernatural creature.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized what this was. This must be his destiny. Years ago, the ether moved to introduce Fidds to Stanford Pines. Now, it moved again, giving Fidds this opportunity. Fidds was to be part of the team that discovered the supernatural. Surely that’s what this was!

By the time he got off his bus, he knew what he had to do.

He hurried home in the long shadows of sunset, wrote Ford a letter agreeing to go with him, and put it on his bedside. Then, in the morning, he dropped the letter off at the post office and went to Lilith’s shack. She was going to be so happy for him!

“Lilith!” he called, skidding down the familiar hill to her shack. “Lilith, I have great news!”

No response.

Fidds ducked into her shack. “Lilith?”

Nothing.

She must be in town, then. Or something. Fidds went back onto the porch and sat on the ground, waiting.

Nothing.

Then, nothing.

Then — more nothing.

Hours later, Fidds’ stomach grumbled. Where was she? He got to his feet, thinking of a few places she could be, and headed for the nearby cliff. Maybe she was out there meditating.

He grinned to himself. Maybe she was out there flying.

When he got to the cliff, there was no one there. Nothing but the wind and the rush of the river below. Fidds peered off the edge as much as his nausea would allow, then stepped back. Where could she be?

He went back to her shack, hoping she’d be there by now. No one was there. By now, Fidds was getting increasingly worried, but he shoved it down. It’s fine, he told himself. She’s just taking a long time doing whatever errand she’s doing in town.

There seemed to be plenty of food here, though. That was really the only reason Lilith went into town.

Fidds walked around the shack, looking for clues. The only thing that looked out of place was a folded piece of paper on Lilith’s favorite folding chair. He picked it up and discovered a note, written in shaky handwriting, addressed to him.

_Dear Fiddleford,_

_I’m going to do it. I’m ready, and I can’t wait no more. I’m going to jump off the cliff, and I’m going to fly. I’ll probably be gone for a while, exploring and the like, but the next time I see you, I’ll be free as a bird._

_-Lilith_

Fidds stared down at the paper. Horror and excitement warred within him. She. . . she’d done it. Had she been successful?

He ran back to the cliff and searched the trees and river below, looking for any sign of her. He saw nothing that he hadn’t seen when he’d come a few minutes ago.

Lilith wasn’t here.

She had flown away.

A laugh bubbled up in Fidds’ throat. He laughed, he cheered, he danced atop that cliff. “You did it!” he shouted to nothing. “You did it, Lilith!”

In his exulting, he didn’t consider the alternative. But he didn’t need to. He _knew_ she’d done it. He just knew it. After all these years of practice, she had finally unlocked her final power: the power to fly.

Fidds went home rejoicing that day.

For the majority of the summer, he worked at the auto shop and prepared to leave with Ford. Every day, he checked if Lilith was home yet from her maiden voyage. Every day, he found her shack empty. She must be having a great time, wherever she was.

Finally, Ford wrote him that it was time to leave.

The letter took some wind out of Fidds’ sails, to be honest. He was so hoping that Lilith would come back before he had to go. But she wasn’t back yet, and he had to answer Ford’s summons.

He sat down that day and wrote her a letter, describing where he was and what he was doing. That way, she’d know. She’d know that her prediction had been correct, all those years ago — that Fidds’ destiny really was tied with the motions of the ether. Still, he wished he could’ve seen her before he left. With a heavy heart, he took the letter to her shack and set it on her folding chair.

“Goodbye, Lilith,” he said, standing at the top of the hill and waving down at the shack. “I’m so glad you finally got to fly.”

Then he turned and headed for home. He kissed his mother on the cheek, grabbed his luggage, and got on the bus, ready for his new journey with Ford. And when the research partners got to Gravity Rises, Fidds looked out on the coniferous trees and knew he was one step closer to his destiny.

He never heard from Lilith again.


	7. Chapter 7

“Whatcha got there, Ralph?”

Peter Bowers leaned forward in the boat as his friend Ralph tugged on his fishing pole. Looked like he had something big on the end.

Ralph pulled. “I dunno, it won’t budge!”

“Ain’t it a fish?”

“It ain’t pullin’ like a fish. I think it’s somethin’ else.”

“Aw, then it’s jus’ litter or somethin’. Leave it.”

Ralph gave one last pull. The fishing hook came free and splashed to the surface.

A broken piece of jewelry dangled from the barb.

The two fishermen looked at each other with wide eyes. Fantasies of buried treasure passed between them in a silent conversation.

Pete broke the silence by jumping out of the boat. The river was about shoulder deep here, and Pete shivered in the shock of the cold water. But he recovered quickly, diving under the water to get a look at whatever was below the water.

Water flew into the air as Pete came up almost immediately after. “Ralph! There’s someone down there!”

Ralph’s eyes widened. “Is they alive?”

“I don’t think so, but we better get them out jus’ in case, right?”

That seemed the chivalrous thing to do. Ralph jumped out of the boat, waded over to the nearby bank to tie it up, and went back to help Pete. Together, they pulled the poor soul out of the water and onto the shore.

“Is they alive?” Ralph repeated.

Pete grimaced down at the mangled body. “Ain’t no way,” he said. He crouched down to feel for a breath on his cheek, but got what he was expecting: nothing. “I think she been dead a long time.”

Ralph shuddered. “What’d she do, dive off a cliff?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Pete agreed. He tore his eyes away from the horrifying corpse. “C’mon,” he said, standing. “We better get back to town and tell the police.”

“Think they’ll know who she is?”

“Maybe,” Pete said.

Ralph glanced down at the fragments of jewelry that twined around the body. “Think that’s worth somethin’?”

Pete slapped him on the arm. “No, it ain’t worth nothin’! That’s a black lady!”

“Maybe she stole it and died trying to escape.”

“Then we woulda heard about it. And even if it was worth somethin’, I don’t wanna rob no dead body!” Pete went back to the river, washed his hands off in the water, and jumped back in the boat. “C’mon.”

Ralph stared at the jewelry.

“C’mon!”

Once Ralph was back on the boat, Pete untied it, and they started down the river to the town.

When the police arrived on scene, they found the body of an unrecognizable black woman, smashed up from some kind of impact. The body was far too waterlogged for fingerprints, and far too mangled for anyone but the closest of kin to recognize her. No missing persons reports had recently been filed in the area for a black woman; the police asked around if anyone knew her, but no one did.

Only one person in the world could have possibly recognized the body.

And that person was in Gravity Rises, Oregon.

**END OF MINISODE TWO**


End file.
